A Jacobite Gazetteer - Italy

Gries


The town of Gries is located about 50 kilometres south of the Austrian border. Today it is a suburb to the northwest of the city of Bolzano (Bozen). Until 1919 this area of Italy was part of Austria.

In September 1848 Queen Adelgunde, wife of King Francis I, arrived in Gries. She and her husband had left Modena in March on account of the revolution. Francis returned to Modena in August but it was decided that if was safer for Adelgunde to wait longer. In Gries she lived at the Villa Aufschneiter which was a luxury hotel at the time.1 On October 19, 1848, Queen Adelgunde gave birth to her only child Princess Anna at the villa. Anna was baptised there privately the next day.2

Francis visited his wife and daughter at the villa several times. At the end of May 1849 Adelgunde and Anna left Gries and returned to Modena.3

Villa Aufschneiter is now a geriatric hospital "Casa di Cura Grieserhof" operated by the Sisters of the Third Order of Saint Francis. It is located at Via Cologna, 1, about 400 metres south of the Grieser Platz.

Telephone: 0471/266330.


Notes

1 Teodoro Bayard de Volo, Vita di Francesco V, Duca di Modena, 1819-1875 (Roma: Spithover, 1878), I, 362.

2 Ibid., I, 364.

2 Ibid., I, 365.


This page is maintained by Noel S. McFerran (noel.mcferran@rogers.com) and was last updated April 13, 2008.
© Noel S. McFerran 2003.